Systems and methods for dipstick diagnostic tools and related methods

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure relates to a medical diagnostic and delivery device includes a dipstick type device. The device include cartridge containing one more substance or medicaments configured to be delivered to a user in the form a liquid, particles, or fine mist. In particular embodiments, the device can include a heating element to vaporize the substance and deliver the vapor to a user. In various embodiments, the device includes one or more sensors configured to analyze the one or substances or medications contained within the cartridge and sense, detect or otherwise determine an expiration date of the substance or medication.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the benefit of and priority to U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/155,841, titled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FORDIPSTICK DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS AND RELATED METHODS” and filed May 1, 2015,the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present application relates generally to systems and methods formedical diagnostics and medication delivery.

BACKGROUND

A central theme in medical diagnostics is the ability to diagnose one ormore medical conditions at the point of care. The human body presentsvarious bodily fluids which can be accessible in a non-invasive mannersuch as, for example, breath, saliva, tears, mucus, etc. which cancontain key biomarkers or analytes for providing an accurate analysis ofa medical condition. For example, biomarkers such as glucose, alcohol,cancer biomarkers, biomarkers of stress, pregnancy, polycystic ovarysyndrome (PCOS), neurological diseases (e.g., Cushing's disease,Addison's diseases, Alzhiemers, multiple schlerosis (MS), post-traumaticstress disorder (PTSD), Parkinson's disease, etc.), metabolic diseases,osteoporosis, and other diseases can present themselves in bodilyfluids.

Vaporizers or inhalers may be used to administer, transform or otherwisedispense a substance in a consumable format (i.e. vapor, fine powder,mist, liquid) for the user. One form of vaporizers includes electroniccigarettes. The substance for consumption through a vaporizer orvaporization apparatus or device may include Caffeine, an energyboosting formulation, a flavored substance, a medicinal formula, asupplement, a vitamin, a mineral, any ingredient officially monographedand listed in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States ofAmerica (the “HPUS”), or various other products for consumption alone orin combination.

SUMMARY

Embodiments described herein relate generally to medical diagnosis anddelivery devices, and in particular to dipstick type medical diagnosticdevices or ingestible pills for providing one or more diagnostic orsubstance delivery application.

In some embodiments, a medical diagnostic and delivery device includes adipstick type device. The device include cartridge containing one moresubstance or medicaments configured to be delivered to a user in theform a liquid, particles, or fine mist. In particular embodiments, thedevice can include a heating element to vaporize the substance anddeliver the vapor to a user. In various embodiments, the device includesone or more sensors configured to analyze the one or substances ormedications contained within the cartridge and sense, detect orotherwise determine an expiration date of the substance or medication.The sensor can include for example, a colorimetric sensor (e.g., alateral flow sensor, a paper microfluidics based sensor, a microfluidicreactor, etc.), an electrochemical sensor (e.g., a redox sensor, animpedance sensor, a conductance sensor), an electromagnetic sensor, ananopore device, or any other suitable sensor. The cartridge can be influid communication with the sensor. In other embodiments, the devicecan also detect the presence of harmful substances in the substance ormedication which become incorporated in the substance or medicationduring a manufacturing process thereby preventing delivery of thecontaminated substance to the user. In various embodiments, the sensoris removably coupled to the device and can be disposable. Once a sensingoperation has been performed, the used sensor can be removed from themedical device and a new sensor can be inserted into the device toreplace the old sensor. In other words, a fresh sensor is used for eachmeasurement. In various embodiments, the medical device is configured toreceive a variety of sensors such that each of the variety of sensors isconfigured to sense, detect or otherwise determine different physical orbiochemical parameters of a substance or a bodily fluid inserted intothe medical device. In some embodiments, the cartridge can include aplurality of silos, chambers, channels, containers, among others. Eachof the silos can contain a plurality of the same medication or differentmedications. In one embodiment, the cartridge includes a laterallydisplaceable cartridge having a plurality of substance silos arrangedalong a lateral axis of the cartridge. In another embodiment, thecartridge includes a circular cartridge including a plurality ofsubstance silos positioned in radial orientation about a central axis ofthe cartridge. The circular cartridge is configured to be rotated aboutits central axis to position a predetermined substance for analysis ordelivery to the user.

The device also includes electronic circuitry that can include one ormore of a power source, a processor, a memory, a speaker, microphone anda display. The processor may be configured to execute instructions foranalyzing signals provided by the sensor and determine expiry of thesubstance, presence of harmful contaminants in the medication, and/oridentify correct substance to be delivered to the user. The electroniccircuitry can also include communication and/or location devices such asBluetooth®, Wi-Fi, RFID, cellular transceiver, and/or GPS. In variousembodiments, a medical provider (e.g., a doctor, a nurse, a caregiver,or a specially programmer remote server such as a smartphone, a tablet,a remote computer, etc.) can communicate with the medical device usingone or more of the communication devices included in the electroniccircuitry to remotely monitor the status (e.g., expiry status, presenceof harmful contaminants, identify correct medication to be delivery) ofthe one or more substance contained within the cartridge, and select oneor more medications within the cartridge to be delivered to the user.

In various embodiments, the medical diagnostic device can include aminiature sensor embedded within the cartridge of the medical device.The sensor can be positioned inside one or more silos included in thecartridge that contain a liquid substance. The sensor can be configuredto sense if the substance has expired, sense the presence ofcontaminants in the substance, or sense if the substance has decomposed(e.g., decomposition or degradation of the substance such as insulin,albuterol, fluticasone, or any other substance due to heat or light).The sensor can include an electrochemical sensor, or a grid/matrix typesensor such as a lateral flow sensor, a paper or polymeric sensorpositioned within one or more silos of the cartridge. The sensor can beconfigured to provide information of the level of the substanceremaining in the silo regardless of a physical orientation of thedevice.

In various embodiments, the device can be configured to sense orotherwise determine a level of substance remaining in the cartridge. Insome embodiments, the device can determine a level of substanceremaining in the cartridge using battery power consumption. In suchembodiments, a fully charged battery and a cartridge include thesubstance or medications are coupled to the device. Medication isdispensed from the medical device at a controlled flow rate. An amountof battery power consumed for dispensing the medication is determinedand a level of substance present in the cartridge is determined based onthe battery power consumed.

In various embodiments, if the level of the substance in the cartridgefalls below a critical level, the device indicates to a user, forexample, via an audio/visual indication or an alert communicated to aremote server (e.g., an SMS message, an alert on a smartphone or tabletapp, or an alert on a remote computer) to inform the user the substancelevel is critically low. In some embodiments, the critical level can bebased on a dosage of the substance consumed by the user.

In some embodiments, a dipstick type medical diagnostic device isconfigured to receive a breath of a user and sense, detect or otherwisedetermine one or more physical and biochemical parameters of the breathwhich are indicative of the health of the user. In other embodiments,the device can also be used to receive and analyze saliva of a user.Such a medical diagnostic device can include a first channel into whicha user can blow. One or more sensors, for example, electrochemical orcolorimetric sensors are included in the medical device and configuredto detect one or more physical or biochemical parameters of the patient(glucose, flu virus, other viruses, bacteria, or any other biomarkers ofdisease). The medical device includes a cartridge including a pluralityof therapeutic substances. A processor included in the medication deviceincludes instructions to interpret the signal generated by the sensorfor performing a diagnosis of a medical condition of the patient. Basedon the diagnosis, the processor is configured to identify one or moresuitable medications included in the cartridge to be delivered to theuser. The processor can determine a cartridge position which willprovide the identified medication to the user, displace the cartridge toposition the cartridge within the device such that the identifiedmedication can be delivered to the user via the first channel or asecond channel included in the device.

In various embodiments, a cartridge of the medical device can include asensor configured to measure blood alcohol concentration (BAC) from abreath of a user, or any other health parameter of the user. In variousembodiments, the sensor can include one or more of a breathalyzer, aninfrared sensor for detecting alcohol concentration, or anelectrochemical sensor for example an alcohol oxidase basedelectrochemical sensor. A processor can determine an amount of a maskingsubstance to be delivered to the user to mask or otherwise lower the BAClevel of the user. Based on the determination, the device is configuredto deliver a sufficient amount of a substance to the user to mask orotherwise lower the user BAC level. In other embodiments, the device canalso be used to perform a medical diagnostic (e.g., determine bloodglucose levels, diagnose viral or bacterial infections, etc.) anddetermine an appropriate amount of medication to be delivered to theuser. In particular embodiments, the device can also include one or morecommunication devices such as Bluetooth®, RFID, Wi-Fi, cellulartransceivers or any other communication device to record a medicaldiagnosis or log date, time and/or quantity of substance delivery. Therecord can be included in an app (e.g., a smartphone or tablet app)which is configured for health monitoring and analyze user health trendsover an extended period of time.

In various embodiments in which the substance is delivered as a vapor,the medical device provides a vaporization device configured to vaporizea plurality of substances independently or collectively as selected. Theplurality of substance includes a plurality of independently storedliquids, for example, contained in a single multi-content cartridge. Thevaporization device may be configured to heat one or more of the liquidsindependently and to vary which one or more of the liquids is heated atany time to allow a user to switch substances for vaporization and orcombine different vapors. The vaporization device may be configured toheat different substances for different durations based on the type ofsubstance. At least one of the device or the multi-substance cartridgemay be configured to identify or determine the substances provided inthe cartridge and to permit a user selection of the substances forconsumption through inhaling via an outlet channel in the device.

In various embodiments, a dipstick type medical diagnostic deviceincludes a temperature sensor and is configured to be positioned withina buccal cavity of a patient analogous to a thermometer. The device alsoincludes a fluid communication channel (e.g., a lateral flow substrateor a paper microfluidic channel) configured to receive a saliva of auser. The device also includes a sensor to analyze the saliva and senseone or more physical or biochemical parameters of the user. Suchparameters can include glucose level, BAC, adrenal conditions (e.g.,Cushing's disease, Addison's disease), hormone levels, altered femalehormone states (e.g., PCOS, menopause, anovulation, pregnancy, irregularperiod cycles), altered male hormone states (e.g., hypogonadism,andropause, hyperestrogenic states), metabolic disorders (e.g., insulinresistance, diabetes, muscular dystrophy) benign and metastaticneoplasms (e.g., breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, oralcancer, lung and throat cancer, etc.), infection diseases (e.g., HIV,viral hepatitis, flu, H1N1 flu, SARS virus, amoebiasis, heliobacterpylori infections, C. difficius infections, strep throat), food allergy,cortisol levels as indicators of stress, progesterone, or any otherdisease or medical condition for a which a biomarker is expressed in thesaliva of a patient. The device can also include a processor, powersource, audio/visual display and communication devices as describedherein. In various embodiments, the saliva measurement device can havethe form factor of a dental retainer, a dental brace or a mouth guard,which can be positioned within the buccal cavity of the user forextended periods of time to perform the sensing and diagnosis functionsdescribed herein.

In various embodiments, a medical device includes an ingestible pill forsensing one or more physical or biochemical parameters of a user suchas, blood alcohol, blood glucose, stomach acidity, oral or stomachulcers, or any other medical condition described herein. The pill caninclude a housing having a form factor of a pill and defining aninternal volume. Electronic circuitry is positioned within the internalvolume which can include a power source, a sensor, at least onecommunication device (e.g., a Bluetooth® device), and a processor. Inone embodiment, the housing of the device can be biodegradable such thatthe housing dissolves to expose the electronic circuitry to the stomachcontents and acids of a user. In such embodiments, each of thecomponents included in the electronic circuitry can also be formed fromfood grade and/or organic materials which are bio-degradable orbio-consumable. In one embodiment, the power source is configured togenerate power through an electrochemical reaction with stomach acidsthat produces electrons or ions for powering the electronic circuitry.The sensor can analyze the digestive fluids (e.g., stomach acids orintestinal digestive byproducts) to sense the physical or biochemicalparameters.

In various embodiments, the processor can be configured to executeinstructions to analyze the sensor data and communicate datacorresponding to the analysis via the communication device (e.g.,Bluetooth®) to the user (e.g., a smartphone or tablet app, or a remoteserver). The device can be formed from materials or coated withprotective coatings (e.g., sol-gels, hydrogels or polymers) whichprevent the device from being completely decomposing until the physicalor biochemical parameter have been sensed and data communicated to theuser. In other embodiments, the housing of the device isnon-biodegradable. In such embodiments, the device includes a fluidicchannel such as a capillary for drawing in a bodily fluid such as salivaor stomach acids to perform the diagnostic measurement. In still otherembodiments, the device can include a microneedle, which can beactivated by a plunger included in the device at a predetermined timeafter ingestion or by a remote actuation command. The needle is insertedinto an endothelial layer of the digestive tract of the user to draw asmall quantity of blood which is fluidly communicated to the sensor forsensing the physical or biochemical parameters of the user.

It should be appreciated that all combinations of the foregoing conceptsand additional concepts discussed in greater detail below (provided suchconcepts are not mutually inconsistent) are contemplated as being partof the inventive subject matter disclosed herein. In particular, allcombinations of claimed subject matter appearing at the end of thisdisclosure are contemplated as being part of the inventive subjectmatter disclosed herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The skilled artisan will understand that the drawings primarily are forillustrative purposes and are not intended to limit the scope of thesubject matter described herein. The drawings are not necessarily toscale; in some instances, various aspects of the subject matterdisclosed herein may be shown exaggerated or enlarged in the drawings tofacilitate an understanding of different features. In the drawings, likereference characters generally refer to like features (e.g.,functionally similar and/or structurally similar elements).

FIG. 1A is a block diagram depicting an embodiment of a networkenvironment comprising client devices in communication with serverdevices.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram depicting a cloud computing environmentcomprising client devices in communication with a cloud serviceprovider.

FIGS. 1C and 1D are block diagrams depicting embodiments of computingdevices useful in connection with the methods and systems describedherein.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a medical diagnostic device according to anembodiment.

FIG. 3 is a front view of another configuration of the medical device ofFIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a schematic flow diagram of a method of operating the medicaldevice of FIG. 2 or 3.

FIGS. 5 and 6 are illustrations of embodiments of a cartridge that canbe included in the medical device of FIG. 2 or 3.

FIG. 7 is a schematic flow diagram of a method of operating a medicaldiagnostic device that includes the cartridge of FIG. 5 or 6.

FIG. 8 is a front view of a medical diagnostic device according toanother embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a schematic flow diagram of a method for determining a levelof medication contained within a medication diagnostic device.

FIG. 10 is a front view an embodiment of a medical diagnostic device foranalyzing a breath or saliva of a user and delivering a substance to theuser based on the sensing.

FIG. 11 is a schematic flow diagram of a method for sensing at least onephysical or biochemical parameter from a breath or saliva of a user todiagnose a medical condition and deliver a substance to a user based onthe diagnosis.

FIG. 12 is a front view of another medical diagnostic device formeasuring a temperature and sensing a physical or biochemical parameterincluded in the saliva of a user.

FIG. 13 is a front view of yet another medical diagnostic deviceconfigured to be positioned within a buccal cavity of a user and sense aphysical or biochemical parameter included in the saliva of the user.

FIG. 14 is front view of an embodiment of an ingestible medicaldiagnostic device.

FIG. 15 is a front view of another embodiment of an ingestible medicaldiagnostic device.

FIG. 16 is a schematic flow diagram of a method for performing a medicaldiagnosis using the medical diagnostic device of FIG. 16.

The features and advantages of the inventive concepts disclosed hereinwill become more apparent from the detailed description set forth belowwhen taken in conjunction with the drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Following below are more detailed descriptions of various conceptsrelated to, and embodiments of, inventive variable counterweight systemsand methods of operating variable counterweight systems. It should beappreciated that various concepts introduced above and discussed ingreater detail below may be implemented in any of numerous ways, as thedisclosed concepts are not limited to any particular manner ofimplementation. Examples of specific implementations and applicationsare provided primarily for illustrative purposes.

Section A describes a network environment and computing environmentwhich may be useful for practicing various computing related embodimentsdescribed herein.

Section B describes systems and methods of providing medical diagnosisand medicine administration via medical diagnostic and medicineadministration devices.

It should be appreciated that various concepts introduced above anddiscussed in greater detail below may be implemented in any of numerousways, as the disclosed concepts are not limited to any particular mannerof implementation. Examples of specific implementations and applicationsare provided primarily for illustrative purposes.

A. Computing and Network Environment

Prior to discussing specific inventive embodiments, it may be helpful todescribe aspects of the operating environment as well as associatedsystem components (e.g., hardware elements) in connection with themethods and systems described herein. Referring to FIG. 1A, anembodiment of a network environment is depicted. In brief overview, theillustrated exploring network environment includes one or more clients102 a-102 n (also generally referred to as local machine(s) 102,client(s) 102, client node(s) 102, client machine(s) 102, clientcomputer(s) 102, client device(s) 102, endpoint(s) 102, or endpointnode(s) 102) in communication with one or more servers 106 a-106 n (alsogenerally referred to as server(s) 106, node 106, or remote machine(s)106) via one or more networks 104. In some embodiments, a client 102 hasthe capacity to function as both a client node seeking access toresources provided by a server and as a server providing access tohosted resources for other clients 102 a-102 n.

Although FIG. 1A shows a network 104 between the clients 102 and theservers 106, the clients 102 and the servers 106 may be on the samenetwork 104. In some embodiments, there are multiple networks 104between the clients 102 and the servers 106. In one of theseembodiments, a network 104′ (not shown) may be a private network and anetwork 104 may be a public network. In another of these embodiments, anetwork 104 may be a private network and a network 104′ a publicnetwork. In still another of these embodiments, networks 104 and 104′may both be private networks.

The network 104 may be connected via wired or wireless links. Wiredlinks may include Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), coaxial cable lines, oroptical fiber lines. The wireless links may include BLUETOOTH, Wi-Fi,NFC, RFID Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), aninfrared channel or satellite band. The wireless links may also includeany cellular network standards used to communicate among mobile devices,including standards that qualify as 1G, 2G, 3G, or 4G. The networkstandards may qualify as one or more generation of mobiletelecommunication standards by fulfilling a specification or standardssuch as the specifications maintained by International TelecommunicationUnion. The 3G standards, for example, may correspond to theInternational Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) specification,and the 4G standards may correspond to the International MobileTelecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specification. Examples ofcellular network standards include AMPS, GSM, GPRS, UMTS, LTE, LTEAdvanced, Mobile WiMAX, and WiMAX-Advanced. Cellular network standardsmay use various channel access methods e.g. FDMA, TDMA, CDMA, or SDMA.In some embodiments, different types of data may be transmitted viadifferent links and standards. In other embodiments, the same types ofdata may be transmitted via different links and standards.

The network 104 may be any type and/or form of network. The geographicalscope of the network 104 may vary widely and the network 104 can be abody area network (BAN), a personal area network (PAN), a local-areanetwork (LAN), e.g. Intranet, a metropolitan area network (MAN), a widearea network (WAN), or the Internet. The topology of the network 104 maybe of any form and may include, e.g., any of the following:point-to-point, bus, star, ring, mesh, or tree. The network 104 may bean overlay network, which is virtual and sits on top of one or morelayers of other networks 104′. The network 104 may be of any suchnetwork topology as known to those ordinarily skilled in the art capableof supporting the operations described herein. The network 104 mayutilize different techniques and layers or stacks of protocols,including, e.g., the Ethernet protocol, the internet protocol suite(TCP/IP), the ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) technique, the SONET(Synchronous Optical Networking) protocol, or the SDH (SynchronousDigital Hierarchy) protocol. The TCP/IP internet protocol suite mayinclude application layer, transport layer, internet layer (including,e.g., IPv6), or the link layer. The network 104 may be a type of abroadcast network, a telecommunications network, a data communicationnetwork, or a computer network.

In some embodiments, the system may include multiple, logically-groupedservers 106. In one of these embodiments, the logical group of serversmay be referred to as a server farm 38 or a machine farm 38. In anotherof these embodiments, the servers 106 may be geographically dispersed.In other embodiments, a machine farm 38 may be administered as a singleentity. In still other embodiments, the machine farm 38 includes aplurality of machine farms 38. The servers 106 within each machine farm38 can be heterogeneous—one or more of the servers 106 or machines 106can operate according to one type of operating system platform (e.g.,WINDOWS NT, manufactured by Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash.), whileone or more of the other servers 106 can operate on according to anothertype of operating system platform (e.g., Unix, Linux, or Mac OS X).

In one embodiment, servers 106 in the machine farm 38 may be stored inhigh-density rack systems, along with associated storage systems, andlocated in an enterprise data center. In this embodiment, consolidatingthe servers 106 in this way may improve system manageability, datasecurity, the physical security of the system, and system performance bylocating servers 106 and high performance storage systems on localizedhigh performance networks. Centralizing the servers 106 and storagesystems and coupling them with advanced system management tools allowsmore efficient use of server resources.

The servers 106 of each machine farm 38 do not need to be physicallyproximate to another server 106 in the same machine farm 38. Thus, thegroup of servers 106 logically grouped as a machine farm 38 may beinterconnected using a wide-area network (WAN) connection or ametropolitan-area network (MAN) connection. For example, a machine farm38 may include servers 106 physically located in different continents ordifferent regions of a continent, country, state, city, campus, or room.Data transmission speeds between servers 106 in the machine farm 38 canbe increased if the servers 106 are connected using a local-area network(LAN) connection or some form of direct connection. Additionally, aheterogeneous machine farm 38 may include one or more servers 106operating according to a type of operating system, while one or moreother servers 106 execute one or more types of hypervisors rather thanoperating systems. In these embodiments, hypervisors may be used toemulate virtual hardware, partition physical hardware, virtualizedphysical hardware, and execute virtual machines that provide access tocomputing environments, allowing multiple operating systems to runconcurrently on a host computer. Native hypervisors may run directly onthe host computer. Hypervisors may include VMware ESX/ESXi, manufacturedby VMWare, Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif.; the Xen hypervisor, an opensource product whose development is overseen by Citrix Systems, Inc.;the HYPER-V hypervisors provided by Microsoft or others. Hostedhypervisors may run within an operating system on a second softwarelevel. Examples of hosted hypervisors may include VMware Workstation andVIRTUALBOX.

Management of the machine farm 38 may be de-centralized. For example,one or more servers 106 may comprise components, subsystems and modulesto support one or more management services for the machine farm 38. Inone of these embodiments, one or more servers 106 provide functionalityfor management of dynamic data, including techniques for handlingfailover, data replication, and increasing the robustness of the machinefarm 38. Each server 106 may communicate with a persistent store and, insome embodiments, with a dynamic store.

Server 106 may be a file server, application server, web server, proxyserver, appliance, network appliance, gateway, gateway server,virtualization server, deployment server, SSL VPN server, or firewall.In one embodiment, the server 106 may be referred to as a remote machineor a node. In another embodiment, a plurality of nodes 290 may be in thepath between any two communicating servers.

Referring to FIG. 1B, a cloud computing environment is depicted. A cloudcomputing environment may provide client 102 with one or more resourcesprovided by a network environment. The cloud computing environment mayinclude one or more clients 102 a-102 n, in communication with the cloud108 over one or more networks 104. Clients 102 may include, e.g., thickclients, thin clients, and zero clients. A thick client may provide atleast some functionality even when disconnected from the cloud 108 orservers 106. A thin client or a zero client may depend on the connectionto the cloud 108 or server 106 to provide functionality. A zero clientmay depend on the cloud 108 or other networks 104 or servers 106 toretrieve operating system data for the client device. The cloud 108 mayinclude back end platforms, e.g., servers 106, storage, server farms ordata centers.

The cloud 108 may be public, private, or hybrid. Public clouds mayinclude public servers 106 that are maintained by third parties to theclients 102 or the owners of the clients. The servers 106 may be locatedoff-site in remote geographical locations as disclosed above orotherwise. Public clouds may be connected to the servers 106 over apublic network. Private clouds may include private servers 106 that arephysically maintained by clients 102 or owners of clients. Privateclouds may be connected to the servers 106 over a private network 104.Hybrid clouds 108 may include both the private and public networks 104and servers 106.

The cloud 108 may also include a cloud based delivery, e.g. Software asa Service (SaaS) 110, Platform as a Service (PaaS) 112, andInfrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 114. IaaS may refer to a user rentingthe use of infrastructure resources that are needed during a specifiedtime period. IaaS providers may offer storage, networking, servers orvirtualization resources from large pools, allowing the users to quicklyscale up by accessing more resources as needed. Examples of IaaS includeAMAZON WEB SERVICES provided by Amazon.com, Inc., of Seattle, Wash.,RACKSPACE CLOUD provided by Rackspace US, Inc., of San Antonio, Tex.,Google Compute Engine provided by Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.,or RIGHTSCALE provided by RightScale, Inc., of Santa Barbara, Calif.PaaS providers may offer functionality provided by IaaS, including,e.g., storage, networking, servers or virtualization, as well asadditional resources such as, e.g., the operating system, middleware, orruntime resources. Examples of PaaS include WINDOWS AZURE provided byMicrosoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., Google App Engine provided byGoogle Inc., and HEROKU provided by Heroku, Inc. of San Francisco,Calif. SaaS providers may offer the resources that PaaS provides,including storage, networking, servers, virtualization, operatingsystem, middleware, or runtime resources. In some embodiments, SaaSproviders may offer additional resources including, e.g., data andapplication resources. Examples of SaaS include GOOGLE APPS provided byGoogle Inc., SALESFORCE provided by Salesforce.com Inc. of SanFrancisco, Calif., or OFFICE 365 provided by Microsoft Corporation.Examples of SaaS may also include data storage providers, e.g. DROPBOXprovided by Dropbox, Inc. of San Francisco, Calif., Microsoft SKYDRIVEprovided by Microsoft Corporation, Google Drive provided by Google Inc.,or Apple ICLOUD provided by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.

Clients 102 may access IaaS resources with one or more IaaS standards,including, e.g., Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Open CloudComputing Interface (OCCI), Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface(CIMI), or OpenStack standards. Some IaaS standards may allow clientsaccess to resources over HTTP, and may use Representational StateTransfer (REST) protocol or Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).Clients 102 may access PaaS resources with different PaaS interfaces.Some PaaS interfaces use HTTP packages, standard Java APIs, JavaMailAPI, Java Data Objects (JDO), Java Persistence API (JPA), Python APIs,web integration APIs for different programming languages including,e.g., Rack for Ruby, WSGI for Python, or PSGI for Perl, or other APIsthat may be built on REST, HTTP, XML, or other protocols. Clients 102may access SaaS resources through the use of web-based user interfaces,provided by a web browser (e.g. GOOGLE CHROME, Microsoft INTERNETEXPLORER, or Mozilla Firefox provided by Mozilla Foundation of MountainView, Calif.). Clients 102 may also access SaaS resources throughsmartphone or tablet applications, including, e.g., Salesforce SalesCloud, or Google Drive app. Clients 102 may also access SaaS resourcesthrough the client operating system, including, e.g., Windows filesystem for DROPBOX.

In some embodiments, access to IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS resources may beauthenticated. For example, a server or authentication server mayauthenticate a user via security certificates, HTTPS, or API keys. APIkeys may include various encryption standards such as, e.g., AdvancedEncryption Standard (AES). Data resources may be sent over TransportLayer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

The client 102 and server 106 may be deployed as and/or executed on anytype and form of computing device, e.g. a computer, network device orappliance capable of communicating on any type and form of network andperforming the operations described herein. FIGS. 1C and 1D depict blockdiagrams of a computing device 100 useful for practicing an embodimentof the client 102 or a server 106. As shown in FIGS. 1C and 1D, eachcomputing device 100 includes a central processing unit 121, and a mainmemory unit 122. As shown in FIG. 1C, a computing device 100 may includea storage device 128, an installation device 116, a network interface118, an I/O controller 123, display devices 124 a-124 n, a keyboard 126and a pointing device 127, e.g. a mouse. The storage device 128 mayinclude, without limitation, an operating system, and/or software of amedical diagnostic system 120 (e.g., the medical diagnostic device 200,700, 900, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 or any other medical diagnostic devicedescribed herein). As shown in FIG. 1D, each computing device 100 mayalso include additional optional elements, e.g. a memory port 103, abridge 170, one or more input/output devices 130 a-130 n (generallyreferred to using reference numeral 130), and a cache memory 140 incommunication with the central processing unit 121.

The central processing unit 121 is any logic circuitry that responds toand processes instructions fetched from the main memory unit 122. Inmany embodiments, the central processing unit 121 is provided by amicroprocessor unit, e.g.: those manufactured by Intel Corporation ofMountain View, Calif.; those manufactured by Motorola Corporation ofSchaumburg, Ill.; the ARM processor and TEGRA system on a chip (SoC)manufactured by Nvidia of Santa Clara, Calif.; the POWER7 processor,those manufactured by International Business Machines of White Plains,N.Y.; or those manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale,Calif. The computing device 100 may be based on any of these processors,or any other processor capable of operating as described herein. Thecentral processing unit 121 may utilize instruction level parallelism,thread level parallelism, different levels of cache, and multi-coreprocessors. A multi-core processor may include two or more processingunits on a single computing component. Examples of multi-core processorsinclude the AMD PHENOM IIX2, INTEL CORE i5 and INTEL CORE i7.

Main memory unit 122 may include one or more memory chips capable ofstoring data and allowing any storage location to be directly accessedby the microprocessor 121. Main memory unit 122 may be volatile andfaster than storage 128 memory. Main memory units 122 may be Dynamicrandom access memory (DRAM) or any variants, including static randomaccess memory (SRAM), Burst SRAM or SynchBurst SRAM (BSRAM), Fast PageMode DRAM (FPM DRAM), Enhanced DRAM (EDRAM), Extended Data Output RAM(EDO RAM), Extended Data Output DRAM (EDO DRAM), Burst Extended DataOutput DRAM (BEDO DRAM), Single Data Rate Synchronous DRAM (SDR SDRAM),Double Data Rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), Direct Rambus DRAM (DRDRAM), orExtreme Data Rate DRAM (XDR DRAM). In some embodiments, the main memory122 or the storage 128 may be non-volatile; e.g., non-volatile readaccess memory (NVRAM), flash memory non-volatile static RAM (nvSRAM),Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM), Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM), Phase-changememory (PRAM), conductive-bridging RAM (CBRAM),Silicon-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SONOS), Resistive RAM (RRAM),Racetrack, Nano-RAM (NRAM), or Millipede memory. The main memory 122 maybe based on any of the above described memory chips, or any otheravailable memory chips capable of operating as described herein. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 1C, the processor 121 communicates with mainmemory 122 via a system bus 150 (described in more detail below). FIG.1D depicts an embodiment of a computing device 100 in which theprocessor communicates directly with main memory 122 via a memory port103. For example, in FIG. 1D the main memory 122 may be DRDRAM.

FIG. 1D depicts an embodiment in which the main processor 121communicates directly with cache memory 140 via a secondary bus,sometimes referred to as a backside bus. In other embodiments, the mainprocessor 121 communicates with cache memory 140 using the system bus150. Cache memory 140 typically has a faster response time than mainmemory 122 and is typically provided by SRAM, BSRAM, or EDRAM. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 1D, the processor 121 communicates with variousI/O devices 130 via a local system bus 150. Various buses may be used toconnect the central processing unit 121 to any of the I/O devices 130,including a PCI bus, a PCI-X bus, or a PCI-Express bus, or a NuBus. Forembodiments in which the I/O device is a video display 124, theprocessor 121 may use an Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) to communicatewith the display 124 or the I/O controller 123 for the display 124. FIG.1D depicts an embodiment of a computer 100 in which the main processor121 communicates directly with I/O device 130 b or other processors 121′via HYPERTRANSPORT, RAPIDIO, or INFINIBAND communications technology.FIG. 1D also depicts an embodiment in which local busses and directcommunication are mixed: the processor 121 communicates with I/O device130 a using a local interconnect bus while communicating with I/O device130 b directly.

A wide variety of I/O devices 130 a-130 n may be present in thecomputing device 100. Input devices may include keyboards, mice,trackpads, trackballs, touchpads, touch mice, multi-touch touchpads andtouch mice, microphones, multi-array microphones, drawing tablets,cameras, single-lens reflex camera (SLR), digital SLR (DSLR), CMOSsensors, accelerometers, infrared optical sensors, pressure sensors,magnetometer sensors, angular rate sensors, depth sensors, proximitysensors, ambient light sensors, gyroscopic sensors, or other sensors.Output devices may include video displays, graphical displays, speakers,headphones, inkjet printers, laser printers, and 3D printers.

Devices 130 a-130 n may include a combination of multiple input oroutput devices, including, e.g., Microsoft KINECT, Nintendo Wiimote forthe WII, Nintendo WII U GAMEPAD, or Apple IPHONE. Some devices 130 a-130n allow gesture recognition inputs through combining some of the inputsand outputs. Some devices 130 a-130 n provides for facial recognitionwhich may be utilized as an input for different purposes includingauthentication and other commands. Some devices 130 a-130 n provides forvoice recognition and inputs, including, e.g., Microsoft KINECT, SIRIfor IPHONE by Apple, Google Now or Google Voice Search.

Additional devices 130 a-130 n have both input and output capabilities,including, e.g., haptic feedback devices, touchscreen displays, ormulti-touch displays. Touchscreen, multi-touch displays, touchpads,touch mice, or other touch sensing devices may use differenttechnologies to sense touch, including, e.g., capacitive, surfacecapacitive, projected capacitive touch (PCT), in-cell capacitive,resistive, infrared, waveguide, dispersive signal touch (DST), in-celloptical, surface acoustic wave (SAW), bending wave touch (BWT), orforce-based sensing technologies. Some multi-touch devices may allow twoor more contact points with the surface, allowing advanced functionalityincluding, e.g., pinch, spread, rotate, scroll, or other gestures. Sometouchscreen devices, including, e.g., Microsoft PIXELSENSE orMulti-Touch Collaboration Wall, may have larger surfaces, such as on atable-top or on a wall, and may also interact with other electronicdevices. Some I/O devices 130 a-130 n, display devices 124 a-124 n orgroup of devices may be augment reality devices. The I/O devices may becontrolled by an I/O controller 123 as shown in FIG. 1C. The I/Ocontroller may control one or more I/O devices, such as, e.g., akeyboard 126 and a pointing device 127, e.g., a mouse or optical pen.Furthermore, an I/O device may also provide storage and/or aninstallation medium 116 for the computing device 100. In still otherembodiments, the computing device 100 may provide USB connections (notshown) to receive handheld USB storage devices. In further embodiments,an I/O device 130 may be a bridge between the system bus 150 and anexternal communication bus, e.g. a USB bus, a SCSI bus, a FireWire bus,an Ethernet bus, a Gigabit Ethernet bus, a Fibre Channel bus, or aThunderbolt bus.

In some embodiments, display devices 124 a-124 n may be connected to I/Ocontroller 123. Display devices may include, e.g., liquid crystaldisplays (LCD), thin film transistor LCD (TFT-LCD), blue phase LCD,electronic papers (e-ink) displays, flexile displays, light emittingdiode displays (LED), digital light processing (DLP) displays, liquidcrystal on silicon (LCOS) displays, organic light-emitting diode (OLED)displays, active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays,liquid crystal laser displays, time-multiplexed optical shutter (TMOS)displays, or 3D displays. Examples of 3D displays may use, e.g.stereoscopy, polarization filters, active shutters, or autostereoscopy.Display devices 124 a-124 n may also be a head-mounted display (HMD). Insome embodiments, display devices 124 a-124 n or the corresponding I/Ocontrollers 123 may be controlled through or have hardware support forOPENGL or DIRECTX API or other graphics libraries.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 may include or connect tomultiple display devices 124 a-124 n, which each may be of the same ordifferent type and/or form. As such, any of the I/O devices 130 a-130 nand/or the I/O controller 123 may include any type and/or form ofsuitable hardware, software, or combination of hardware and software tosupport, enable or provide for the connection and use of multipledisplay devices 124 a-124 n by the computing device 100. For example,the computing device 100 may include any type and/or form of videoadapter, video card, driver, and/or library to interface, communicate,connect or otherwise use the display devices 124 a-124 n. In oneembodiment, a video adapter may include multiple connectors to interfaceto multiple display devices 124 a-124 n. In other embodiments, thecomputing device 100 may include multiple video adapters, with eachvideo adapter connected to one or more of the display devices 124 a-124n. In some embodiments, any portion of the operating system of thecomputing device 100 may be configured for using multiple displays 124a-124 n. In other embodiments, one or more of the display devices 124a-124 n may be provided by one or more other computing devices 100 a or100 b connected to the computing device 100, via the network 104. Insome embodiments software may be designed and constructed to use anothercomputer's display device as a second display device 124 a for thecomputing device 100. For example, in one embodiment, an Apple iPad mayconnect to a computing device 100 and use the display of the device 100as an additional display screen that may be used as an extended desktop.One ordinarily skilled in the art will recognize and appreciate thevarious ways and embodiments that a computing device 100 may beconfigured to have multiple display devices 124 a-124 n.

Referring again to FIG. 1C, the computing device 100 may comprise astorage device 128 (e.g. one or more hard disk drives or redundantarrays of independent disks) for storing an operating system or otherrelated software, and for storing application software programs such asany program related to the software 120 for the vaporization system.Examples of storage device 128 include, e.g., hard disk drive (HDD);optical drive including CD drive, DVD drive, or BLU-RAY drive;solid-state drive (SSD); USB flash drive; or any other device suitablefor storing data. Some storage devices may include multiple volatile andnon-volatile memories, including, e.g., solid state hybrid drives thatcombine hard disks with solid state cache. Some storage device 128 maybe non-volatile, mutable, or read-only. Some storage device 128 may beinternal and connect to the computing device 100 via a bus 150. Somestorage device 128 may be external and connect to the computing device100 via an I/O device 130 that provides an external bus. Some storagedevice 128 may connect to the computing device 100 via the networkinterface 118 over a network 104, including, e.g., the Remote Disk forMACBOOK AIR by Apple. Some client devices 100 may not require anon-volatile storage device 128 and may be thin clients or zero clients102. Some storage device 128 may also be used as an installation device116, and may be suitable for installing software and programs.Additionally, the operating system and the software can be run from abootable medium, for example, a bootable CD, e.g. KNOPPIX, a bootable CDfor GNU/Linux that is available as a GNU/Linux distribution fromknoppix.net.

Client device 100 may also install software or application from anapplication distribution platform. Examples of application distributionplatforms include the App Store for iOS provided by Apple, Inc., the MacApp Store provided by Apple, Inc., GOOGLE PLAY for Android OS providedby Google Inc., Chrome Webstore for CHROME OS provided by Google Inc.,and Amazon Appstore for Android OS and KINDLE FIRE provided byAmazon.com, Inc. An application distribution platform may facilitateinstallation of software on a client device 102. An applicationdistribution platform may include a repository of applications on aserver 106 or a cloud 108, which the clients 102 a-102 n may access overa network 104. An application distribution platform may includeapplication developed and provided by various developers. A user of aclient device 102 may select, purchase and/or download an applicationvia the application distribution platform.

Furthermore, the computing device 100 may include a network interface118 to interface to the network 104 through a variety of connectionsincluding, but not limited to, standard telephone lines LAN or WAN links(e.g., 802.11, T1, T3, Gigabit Ethernet, Infiniband), broadbandconnections (e.g., ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM, Gigabit Ethernet,Ethernet-over-SONET, ADSL, VDSL, BPON, GPON, fiber optical includingFiOS), wireless connections, or some combination of any or all of theabove. Connections can be established using a variety of communicationprotocols (e.g., TCP/IP, Ethernet, ARCNET, SONET, SDH, Fiber DistributedData Interface (FDDI), IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac CDMA, GSM, WiMax and directasynchronous connections). In one embodiment, the computing device 100communicates with other computing devices 100′ via any type and/or formof gateway or tunneling protocol e.g. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) orTransport Layer Security (TLS), or the Citrix Gateway Protocolmanufactured by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The networkinterface 118 may comprise a built-in network adapter, network interfacecard, PCMCIA network card, EXPRESSCARD network card, card bus networkadapter, wireless network adapter, USB network adapter, modem or anyother device suitable for interfacing the computing device 100 to anytype of network capable of communication and performing the operationsdescribed herein.

A computing device 100 of the sort depicted in FIGS. 1B and 1C mayoperate under the control of an operating system, which controlsscheduling of tasks and access to system resources. The computing device100 can be running any operating system such as any of the versions ofthe MICROSOFT WINDOWS operating systems, the different releases of theUnix and Linux operating systems, any version of the MAC OS forMacintosh computers, any embedded operating system, any real-timeoperating system, any open source operating system, any proprietaryoperating system, any operating systems for mobile computing devices, orany other operating system capable of running on the computing deviceand performing the operations described herein. Typical operatingsystems include, but are not limited to: WINDOWS 2000, WINDOWS Server2012, WINDOWS CE, WINDOWS Phone, WINDOWS XP, WINDOWS VISTA, and WINDOWS7, WINDOWS RT, and WINDOWS 8 all of which are manufactured by MicrosoftCorporation of Redmond, Wash.; MAC OS and iOS, manufactured by Apple,Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.; and Linux, a freely-available operatingsystem, e.g. Linux Mint distribution (“distro”) or Ubuntu, distributedby Canonical Ltd. of London, United Kingdom; or Unix or other Unix-likederivative operating systems; and Android, designed by Google, ofMountain View, Calif., among others. Some operating systems, including,e.g., the CHROME OS by Google, may be used on zero clients or thinclients, including, e.g., CHROMEBOOKS.

The computer system 100 can be any workstation, telephone, desktopcomputer, laptop or notebook computer, netbook, ULTRABOOK, tablet,server, handheld computer, mobile telephone, smartphone or otherportable telecommunications device, media playing device, a gamingsystem, mobile computing device, or any other type and/or form ofcomputing, telecommunications or media device that is capable ofcommunication. The computer system 100 has sufficient processor powerand memory capacity to perform the operations described herein. In someembodiments, the computing device 100 may have different processors,operating systems, and input devices consistent with the device. TheSamsung GALAXY smartphones, e.g., operate under the control of Androidoperating system developed by Google, Inc. GALAXY smartphones receiveinput via a touch interface.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 is a gaming system. Forexample, the computer system 100 may comprise a PLAYSTATION 3, orPERSONAL PLAYSTATION PORTABLE (PSP), or a PLAYSTATION VITA devicemanufactured by the Sony Corporation of Tokyo, Japan, a NINTENDO DS,NINTENDO 3DS, NINTENDO WII, or a NINTENDO WII U device manufactured byNintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, an XBOX 360 device manufactured bythe Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 is a digital audio playersuch as the Apple IPOD, IPOD Touch, and IPOD NANO lines of devices,manufactured by Apple Computer of Cupertino, Calif. Some digital audioplayers may have other functionality, including, e.g., a gaming systemor any functionality made available by an application from a digitalapplication distribution platform. For example, the IPOD Touch mayaccess the Apple App Store. In some embodiments, the computing device100 is a portable media player or digital audio player supporting fileformats including, but not limited to, MP3, WAV, M4A/AAC, WMA ProtectedAAC, AIFF, Audible audiobook, Apple Lossless audio file formats and.mov, .m4v, and .mp4 MPEG-4 (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) video file formats.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 is a tablet e.g. the IPADline of devices by Apple; GALAXY TAB family of devices by Samsung; orKINDLE FIRE, by Amazon.com, Inc. of Seattle, Wash. In other embodiments,the computing device 100 is an eBook reader, e.g. the KINDLE family ofdevices by Amazon.com, or NOOK family of devices by Barnes & Noble, Inc.of New York City, N.Y.

In some embodiments, the communications device 102 includes acombination of devices, e.g. a smartphone combined with a digital audioplayer or portable media player. For example, one of these embodimentsis a smartphone, e.g. the IPHONE family of smartphones manufactured byApple, Inc.; a Samsung GALAXY family of smartphones manufactured bySamsung, Inc; or a Motorola DROID family of smartphones. In yet anotherembodiment, the communications device 102 is a laptop or desktopcomputer equipped with a web browser and a microphone and speakersystem, e.g. a telephony headset. In these embodiments, thecommunications devices 102 are web-enabled and can receive and initiatephone calls. In some embodiments, a laptop or desktop computer is alsoequipped with a webcam or other video capture device that enables videochat and video call. In some embodiments, the communication device 102is a wearable mobile computing device including but not limited toGoogle Glass and Samsung Gear.

In some embodiments, the status of one or more machines 102, 106 in thenetwork 104 is monitored, generally as part of network management. Inone of these embodiments, the status of a machine may include anidentification of load information (e.g., the number of processes on themachine, CPU and memory utilization), of port information (e.g., thenumber of available communication ports and the port addresses), or ofsession status (e.g., the duration and type of processes, and whether aprocess is active or idle). In another of these embodiments, thisinformation may be identified by a plurality of metrics, and theplurality of metrics can be applied at least in part towards decisionsin load distribution, network traffic management, and network failurerecovery as well as any aspects of operations of the present solutiondescribed herein. Aspects of the operating environments and componentsdescribed above will become apparent in the context of the vaporizationapparatus and related systems and methods disclosed herein.

B. Systems and Methods of Providing Medical Diagnosis and MedicineAdministration Via Medical Diagnostic and Medicine AdministrationDevices

FIG. 2 is a front view of a medical diagnostic device 200 according toan embodiment. The device 200 includes a housing 202 defining aninternal volume. FIG. 2 provides a partial cross-sectional view in thedevice 200. The device 200 includes a cartridge 210 containing asubstance to be delivered to a user through a fluidic channel 204defined at a proximal end 203 with respect to a user. For example, auser can position the proximal end 203 of the housing 202 on or near thelips of the user to inhale or draw the substance contained within thecartridge 210. While not shown, the device 200 can also include aninjection system, for example, a plunger or a gas pump for deliveringthe substance orally to the user. In still other embodiments, device 200can also include an injector needle to intramuscularly or intravenouslydeliver the substance to the user. The substance may be in the form of aliquid, a mist, powder, an aerosol or a vapor (e.g., as described withrespect to the medical diagnostic device 300 described herein). Thecartridge 210 can include a solid formulation that may be crushed,pulverized, or atomized, or heated and vaporized for inhalation. Thecartridge 210 may include a substance including, but not limited to amedication, a drug, caffeine, panax, ginseng, gingko, biloba, bitterorage, cola-nut, guarana, natrum carbonicum, green tea, cocoa extract,cannabis, yerba mate, other vaporizable or inhalable supplements,pharmaceuticals, waxes, or liquids.

The cartridge 210 may include a cartridge identification code. Thecartridge identification code may identify the substance (e.g.,medication) contained in the cartridge, flavor identification,expiration information, or other pertinent information regarding thecartridge content.

The device includes electronic circuitry 220 for performing varioussensing, diagnostic and data communication functions as may benecessary. The electronic circuitry 220 includes a power source 222, forexample a DC battery, a AA battery, a AAA battery, a coin cell, akinetic power generation device, a solar panel or any other powersource. A processor 224 is included in the electronic circuitry 220. Theprocessor 224 is configured to execute instructions stored on aprogrammable memory 225 included in the electronic circuitry 220. Theprocessor 224 is communicably coupled to a sensor 240 and configured tointerpret signals provided by the sensor 240 included in the electroniccircuitry 220, as described herein, to determine various parameters ofthe substance disposed within the cartridge. The interpreting caninclude comparing the signals using algorithms, look up tables, sensorcalibration information, noise reduction or data filtering usinginstructions stored on the programmable memory 225. Such parameters caninclude determining if the substance (e.g., a medication) has expired orif harmful contaminants are present within the substance that canerroneously be introduced into the substance during a manufacturingprocess. Furthermore, the processor 224 may also be configured toidentify a correct medication included in a plurality of medicationsdisposed within the cartridge 210 for delivering to the user. In someembodiments, the electronic circuitry 220 can also include a counter totime the delivery of the substance (e.g., to determine a quantitydelivered), an increment counter for each substance delivery suggestion,and/or to increment the counter each time a cartridge is changed.

The cartridge identification code may be electronically stored in theprogrammable memory 225, which programmable memory 225 may include otherinformation such as historical usage information, including but notlimited to location of use, device of use, time of use, or other dataassociated with the cartridge. The electronic circuitry 220 alsoincludes a plurality of communication devices for receiving instructionfrom a user (e.g., input into an input interface (not shown) of thedevice 200, or communicated via a smart phone app, tablet app, remoteserver, etc.) or communicating information thereto.

For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the communication devices can includebut are not limited to a Bluetooth® transceiver 226, a Wi-Fi transceiver228, an RFID or NFC tag 230, and a cellular signal transceiver 232. Thedevice 200 also includes GPS 234 for providing location information. Adisplay 236, a speaker 238 and a microphone 239 are also provided. Thedisplay 236 and the speaker 238 can be configured to communicate visualand audio messages respectively to the user such as, for example, powerremaining, connectivity status, diagnosis information, cartridge ID,cartridge count, incorrect substance loaded, substance expired,substance contaminated, alerts, alarms, time, or any other beneficialinformation. The microphone 239 can be configured to allow oral input ofcommands to the device 200, for example, status inquiry, power on/poweroff, voice log, etc. In various embodiments, a medical device caninclude any combination of the communication devices described herein.

The sensor 240 is fluidly coupled to the cartridge 210 and configured toreceive the substance from the cartridge 210 and analyze the substance(e.g., medication) to determine one or more physical or biochemicalparameters of the substance such as, for example, turbidity, expirystatus, presence of contaminants, or other harmful substances present inthe substance. The sensor 240 can include a colorimetric sensor (e.g.,fluorescence, bioluminescent or color producing sensor) which canproduce an optical signal indicative of a value or level of theparameter. In such embodiments, the device 200 can include imaging oroptical detection equipment communicably coupled to the processor 224for interpreting the optical signal and transforming the signal into adigital or analog signal communicable to the processor 224.

In other embodiments, the sensor 240 can include an infrared sensor foranalyzing the substance. In still another embodiment, the sensor 240 caninclude an electrochemical sensor configured to measure a redox currentor voltage of the substance in the absence or presence of a catalyst(e.g., a natural or synthetic enzyme, a precious metal, etc.) whichcorresponds to the parameter of the substance. In another embodiment,the sensor 240 can include an impedance or conductance sensor or anelectromagnetic sensor. In such embodiments, the sensor 240 can includebiological recognition molecules (e.g., polyclonal antibodies,monoclonal antibodies, antibody fragments, DNA, RNA, aptamers, syntheticrecognition molecules and the likes) configured to bind with one or morecomponents of the substance. The binding can alter an electrical ormagnetic characteristic (e.g., impedance, conductance, dipole moment) ofthe sensor which can be interpreted by the processor 224 to determinethe parameter. In still another embodiment, the sensor 240 includes ananopore sensor. In various embodiments, the cartridge 210 can alsocontain reagents other than the substance which are communicated to thesensor 240 along with the medication to participate in biochemicalreactions on the sensor 240 for determining the at least one physical orbiochemical parameter of the substance (e.g., if the substance hasexpired or is contaminated).

In various embodiments, the sensor 240 is removably coupled to thedevice 200 and can be disposable. Once a sensing operation has beenperformed, the used sensor 240 can be removed from the device 200 and anew sensor 240 inserted into the device to replace the old sensor 240.In other words, a fresh sensor 240 is used for each measurement. Inother embodiments, the sensor 240 can be configured to perform apredetermined number of sensing or detecting operations with sufficientreliability before the sensor 240 has to be replaced with a fresh sensor240. In various embodiments, the device 200 is configured to receive avariety of sensors such that each of the variety of sensors isconfigured to sense, detect or otherwise determine different physical orbiochemical parameters of a substance or a bodily fluid inserted intothe medical device. Expanding further, for example, the device 200 canbe configured to receive a first sensor capable of measuring an expirydate of a medication contained within the device 200 or presence ofharmful substance within the device 200. The device 200 can also beconfigured to receive a second sensor in addition to or in place of thefirst sensor which is configured to measure a first physical orbiochemical parameter from a bodily fluid of a user (e.g., glucose).Furthermore, the device 200 can be configured to receive a third sensorin addition to or in place of the first sensor or the second sensor andso on. In this manner, the device 200 can be used to perform a varietyof sensing operations simply by replacing an existing sensor 240 orincluding additional sensors 240 within the device 200. In variousembodiments, the device 200 can be a vaporizer configured to vaporizethe substance for oral communication to the user. For example, FIG. 3shows another configuration of the device 200. In this configuration,the electronic circuitry 220 also includes a heater 241. The heater 241is configured to vaporize the substance (e.g., a medication or any othersubstance described herein). The user can position the proximal end 203of the housing 202 on the lips of the user and inhale to draw in thevapor. In particular embodiments, the substance includes a medicationand the processor 224 can be configured to stop flow of the medicationfrom the cartridge to the user once a predetermined quantity of themedication has been delivered to the user. Furthermore, a light source206 (e.g., an LED) can be positioned on a distal end of the housing 202and configured to emit light when the substance vapor is inhaled by theuser. In other words, the device 200 can function as an e-cigarette. Thedistal end 205 can be transparent or translucent to allow light emittedby the light source 206 to be viewed from outside the housing 202.

FIG. 4 is a schematic flow diagram of a method 300 for analyzing amedication contained within a medical diagnostic device, for example,any configuration of the device 200 or any other medical diagnosticdevice described herein. The method 300 includes initializing themedical device at 302, for example on, picking the device up, requestinga vapor draw, or inserting a new or different cartridge into the device.The device receives a medication draw request at 304. The medicationdraw request may be initiated by the user inputting a command into thedevice or inhaling into the proximal end (e.g., the proximal end 203 ofthe device 200 or 300). The medication draw request may include apredetermined duration based on a dosage to be delivered to the user.Such information can be stored in the memory 225. In variousembodiments, the duration of the medication draw request may beunspecified and the time of the vapor draw may be measured at 306, forexample, via a counter that can be included in the device. In stillother embodiments, the medication draw request can activate the heater241 of the device 200 to vaporize the medication before delivery.

At least one physical or biochemical parameter of the substance issensed, at 308, for example, using the sensor 240 to determine an expirydate or presence of contaminants in the substance. The sensing caninclude any of the sensing methodologies described herein which yield asignal (e.g., current, voltage, impedance, resistance, or opticalsignal) which is communicated to the processor in the form of a digitalor analog signal. It is determined if the medication is expired, at 310.For example, the processor 224 interprets the signals generated by thesensor 240 to determine if the medication has expired, as describedbefore herein. If the medication is expired, the method proceeds tooperation 314, and the user is provided an indication (e.g., anaudio/visual signal, a Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi, RFID or cellular communicationon a smartphone, tablet) of the parameter, without delivering themedication to the user. The user is thus informed that the medication isnot safe for consumption. The information of the parameter is stored onthe parameter at 316, for example, on the memory 225 or a storage mediumof an external device such as a smartphone, tablet, computer or remoteserver. If the medication is not expired, the method detects if themedication is contaminated at 312. For example, the memory 225 can storeinstructions which are executed by the processor 224 to analyze the atleast one physical or biochemical parameter to determine if themedication is expired and/or contaminated. If the medication iscontaminated, the method 300 proceeds to operation 314.

If it is determined, for example, by the processor 224 that themedication is not expired and is free of contaminants, the methodproceeds to operation 318 in which an indication of the parameter isprovided to the user while delivering the medication to the user. Theinformation of the parameter is stored at 320, for example, on thememory 225.

In various embodiments, a substance cartridge included in medicaldiagnostic device can include a plurality of medications. FIG. 5 is afront view of a cartridge 410 that can be included in the medical device200 or any other medical device described herein. The cartridge includesa housing 412 and a plurality of silos 414 defined within the housing412. Each silo 414 is filled or fillable with the same substance ordifferent substances (e.g., different medications corresponding to ahealth management regimen of a user). The silos 414 are defined along alongitudinal axis of the cartridge 410. The cartridge 410 is configuredto be slidably repositioned within the device 200 or any other medicaldevice herein and moved laterally along the longitudinal axis toposition any one of the silos 414 in fluidic communication with thechannel 204 or the heater 241, so that the substance present within thea particular silo 414 is delivered to the user via the channel 204. Therepositioning can be performed manually, or using a linear actuator(e.g., a lead screw or a plunger).

FIG. 6 shows another embodiment of a cartridge 510. The cartridge 510includes a circular housing 512 with a plurality of substance silos 514positioned radially about a central axis of the cartridge 510. Thecartridge 510 can be rotatably repositioned within the device 200, forexample manually, or by an actuator 516, such as a servo motor which canbe coupled to the cartridge 510.

Any of the cartridges 410 or 510 may be programmed with identifyinginformation that indicates what substances are in the cartridge and whatsilo position the substance is positioned at accordingly. The silos 414or 514 may each have a unique position identifier and each cartridge mayhave a silo quantity identifier indicating the number and/or position ofeach silo. The information may be stored in a memory device of thecartridge 410, 510 and may be communicably retrieved or sent to theactuator to control the position of the cartridge in accordance with auser selection.

In particular embodiments, when cartridge 510 rotates, as discussedfurther herein, it is possible for one sub-cartridge (e.g. silo 512) tohave the substance contained therein vaporized at a certainwattage/voltage, while a different sub-cartridge, for example containinga different substance, may be vaporized at a different wattage/voltage.Additionally one sub-cartridge might just dispense (and not vaporize) asubstance (pill, powder, liquid, gel) or any combination of the above.

In particular embodiments each of the cartridges 410, 510 and the silos414, 514, for example a cartridge containing weed, wax, or shatter,operates in a manner similar to an oven. In particular embodimentscontaining a liquid each of the cartridges 410, 510 and/or the silos414, 514 use a wick/coil system. In particular embodiments thecartridges 410, 510 and/or the silos 414, 514 may use one or more of anultrasonic diffuser, a cold air diffuser, an evaporative diffuser, or aheat diffuser. The ultrasonic diffuser uses electronic frequencies tocreate vibrations that are carried to the surface where oils arefloating. The vibrations from the ultrasonic diffuser vaporize the oiland disperse it into the air without using any kind of heat. The coldair diffuser uses room-temperature air to blow the oil into a nebulizerwhere it is vaporized. The cold air diffuser can diffuse quickly andefficiently. The evaporative diffuser includes a fan that blows airthrough a pad or filter where the oil sits and vaporizes the oil on thepad. The heat diffuser uses a heat source to disperse the essential oil.In example embodiments, the cartridge 410, 510 may remain stationary andthe actuator may reposition the heater for heating the silo 414,514and/or may reposition an output port to release the vaporized substance.

FIG. 7 is a schematic flow diagram of an exemplary method 600 forrepositioning a cartridge of a medical diagnostic device for deliveringa predetermined medication to a user and sense one or more physical orbiochemical parameters of the medication to determine if the medicationis fit to be consumed by the user. The method includes initializingmedical device activation at 602, for example in response to a userturning the apparatus 200 on, picking the device up, requesting a vapordraw, or inserting a new or different cartridge 410 or 510. The medicaldiagnostic device 200 is calibrated based on a cartridge ID at 604,which is inserted in to the device and the information provided by thecartridge 410 or 510 regarding the device silos 414 or 514, the numberof silos, the position of the silos, and the contents of the silos.

The device receives a medication draw request at 606, which can includea vapor draw request. In some embodiments, the vapor draw request mayinclude an indication of which one or more substance to inhale at atime. If, for example, a cartridge is loaded with two substances thatshould not be simultaneously mixed, the medical diagnostic device maydeny the request. If the request is approved, the device receives an atleast one physical or biochemical parameter sense request at 608, tosense the parameter of the medication. The parameter sense request canbe for a single medication included in one silo 414 or 514 of thecartridges 410 or 510, whichever is included in the medication device200, or more than one medications stored in the plurality of silos ofthe device 200.

A cartridge position for the parameter sense request is determined at610. The cartridge position corresponding to the parameter sense requestcan stored in the memory 225 and interpreted by the processor based oncartridge ID information provided to the device 200 when the cartridgeis loaded on the device 200. In other embodiments, for example, when thecartridge 410 or 510 are refillable with custom medications, theinformation can be manually provided by the user, for example, enteredin an app on a smartphone which is synced with the device 200 via ahardwired, Bluetooth® or Wi-Fi connection.

It is determined if the cartridge position is correct at 612, i.e., isat least one of the silo 414, 514 including the medication for which thedraw request and sense request was obtained in fluid communication withthe vaporizer 241 or the channel 204 of the device 200. If an incorrectsilo 414 or 514 is aligned, a cartridge displacement sufficient tosatisfy position is determined at 614, and a cartridge reposition isactuated at 616. The cartridge repositioning can include slidablydisplacing the cartridge (e.g., the cartridge 410) or revolving thecartridge (e.g., the cartridge 510) manually or using an actuator (e.g.,a linear actuator or a servo motor). Once the cartridge is repositioned,or the cartridge was correctly positioned at operation 612, theparameter is sensed at 618, for example to determine if the medicationhas expired or is contaminated. At 620, it is determined if theparameter meets a predetermined standard. If the medication meets thestandard, the medication is communicated to the user at 622. If themedication fails the standard, for example is expired or contaminated,the user is alerted at 612 and the medication is not communicated to theuser.

In particular embodiments, a sensor can be positioned within a cartridgeof a medical diagnostic device. FIG. 8 is a front view of medicaldiagnostic device 700 according to another embodiment. The device 700includes a housing 702 defining a channel 704 at a proximal end of thehousing 702 to deliver a substance, for example, any of the substancesdescribed herein to a user. The housing 702 can be substantially similarto the housing 202 described herein and therefore not described infurther detail herein.

A substance cartridge 710 is positioned within the internal volume ofthe housing 702. The cartridge 710 can include the cartridge 210, 410,510 or any other cartridge described herein are configured to includeone or more substances (e.g., any of the substances described herein)within one or more silos of the cartridge 710. Electronic circuitry 720is positioned within the internal volume of the housing 702 and includesa power source 722 and a heater 741. The electronic circuitry 720 can besubstantially similar to the electronic circuitry 220 described hereinand can include one or more components described with respect to theelectronic circuitry 220, excluding the sensor 240. Instead, a sensor740 is embedded within the cartridge, for example, embedded within oneor more silos included in the cartridge. The sensor 740 can include adipstick type sensor (e.g., a lateral flow sensor, a paper microfluidicsensor, microfluidic sensor including a plurality of sensors or anysensor as described with respect to the sensor 240 described beforeherein). The sensor 740 can be configured to measure one or morephysical or biochemical parameters of a substance (e.g., medication)contained within the cartridge 710 as described before herein. Thesensor 740 can be disposable so that each time a new sensor 740 isinserted into the device 700 each time a new cartridge 710 is coupled tothe device 700. In some embodiments, insertion of the cartridge 710 intothe device 700 brings the sensor 740 in electrical communication withthe electronic circuitry 720, for example via magnetic electricalcouplers, snap couplers or contact couplers. In some embodiments, thecartridge can be configured to include one or more sensors that arereplaceable. As such, even if the cartridge still has medicationremaining in one or more silos and does not need to be replaced, a usercan replace one or more sensors of the cartridge without having toreplace the cartridge itself.

In some embodiments, the sensor 740 can also be configured to measure alevel of liquid substance remaining in the cartridge 710. For example,the sensor 74 can include a grid or matrix type sensor configured tomeasure a remaining vaporizable substance in the cartridge 710regardless of the physical orientation of the device 700 (e.g., heldvertically, horizontally or therebetween). For example, the controlsystem 720 may include a processor (e.g., the processor 224) which maybe to determine quantity of a cartridge based on usage history andparameters. For example, vapor or aerosol test may be run on cartridge710 to determine a level of substance remaining within the cartridge710. The cartridge 710 may include the information in the on-boardmemory (e.g., the memory 725) or the information may be pre-programmedinto the processor. The aerosol test may be based on the fully chargedpower source 722, and a filled cartridge 710, test different inputsignals (e.g., current or voltages), and determine how much powervaporizes how much of the given vaporizable or dispensable product fromthe cartridge 710 based on a typical vapor draw, corresponding batterypower reduction in relation to the total quantity of a remainingdispensable substance. This information may be programmed into thecartridge 710 or in the processor. The aerosol test is advantageousbecause it permits a system that functions without additional hardware,pressure sensors, fluid monitoring, etc. which might be used in variousimplementations to determine the remaining dispensable substance in adevice or cartridge. The aerosol test also has the advantage ofpermitting measuring the remaining substance without requiring thedevice 700 to be held in a particular orientation to accurately gaugethe remaining substance. This test permits the measurement to becompleted with an insert in the tank in a grid like format so that amathematical algorithm may be run to determine the remaining volumeirrespective of the orientation of the device 700.

The processor (e.g., the processor 224) uses this information based onthe actual inhalation of the user, to accurately update and monitor theburn rate of a specific user to accurately replenish the supply for theuser on time as discussed further herein. For example, the electroniccircuitry 720 can include a counter or timer 743 to determine aquantity, such as time of vaporization or duration of inhalation. Inparticular embodiments, the electronic circuitry 720 may be configuredto monitor the duration of vaporization, for example, by determining theduration and quantity of heating events by heater 741 configured to heatthe substance in the cartridge 710 for vaporization of the substance.

FIG. 9 is a schematic flow diagram of an exemplary method 800 fordetermining a level of medication or any other substance remaining in acartridge of a device, for example the cartridge 710 of the device 700.The method 800 includes initializing the medical diagnostic deviceactivation at 802, for example in response to a user turning theapparatus 700 on, picking the device up, requesting a vapor draw, orinserting a new or different cartridge 710. The battery of the device isfully charged at 804, for example, the power source 722 of the device700 is coupled to an outlet power to charge the power source 722, or anew or freshly charged power source is inserted into the medical device700.

A cartridge including a medication is coupled to the medical device 806.The medication is dispensed at a controlled flow rate from the medicaldevice 808. For example, the medication is vaporized by the heater 741and includes valves, constructions or capillary flow channels to allowthe medication to be delivered to the user at controlled flow rateirrespective of the inhalation or otherwise draw pressure exerted by theuser on the channel 704. In other embodiments, the flow rate can varybut is normalized via a pressure measurement component. For example, thedevice (e.g., the device 700) can also include a pressure sensor. Datafrom the pressure sensor can be used to normalize the actual flow rateto obtain a normalized flow rate which is used to determine the level ofthe medication remaining in the cartridge 710.

The amount of battery power consumed is determined at 810. The amount ofbattery power remaining can be determined from a known power of thebattery 722 when fully charged and measured power of the battery 722after the dispensing or drawing medication from the device 700. In otherembodiments, the battery power consumed can be measured in real time andis based on the amount of power required to operate the heater 741 for agiven flow rate or predetermined flow rate of the dispensed medication.In still other embodiments, data from the timer or counter 743corresponding to the dispensing or drawing time of the medication iscorrelated to the amount of battery 722 power consumed.

The level of medication remaining in the cartridge is determined basedon battery power consumed at 812. For example, as described before, theprocessor (e.g., the processor 224) uses lookup tables or algorithmsstored therein or in an onboard memory (e.g., the memory 225) todetermine an amount of medication or medication vapor consumed duringthe dispensing operation 808. The amount of medication consumed is thensubtracted from the original amount of medication contained within thecartridge 710 to obtain the amount of medication remaining. Theremaining level is now used as the baseline level for subtracting anamount of medication dispensed in a subsequent dispensing operation todetermine a new level remaining of the medication, and so on. Once thelevel of medication remaining is determined, the method 800 determinesif the medication level is below a critical threshold at 814. Thecritical threshold level can be stored on the processor or memory andcan, for example, correspond to less than 10%, less than 5%, or lessthan 1% of the original volume of the medication remaining in thecartridge 710. In various embodiments, the critical threshold can bedetermined, for example, based on a type of substance, a dosage of thesubstance to be delivered, an actual or expected usage of the substance,the manufacturing or expiry date of the substance, the number of dosagesof the substance that have already been delivered or any other suitableparameter. In particular embodiments, the critical threshold candynamically change or vary based on various parameters such as, forexample, time of day, manufacturing or expiry date, time the cartridge710 has been loaded into the device 700, next scheduled refill pick update, a predetermined time interval defined by the user or a medicalprovider (e.g., a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist), etc. In variousembodiments, once the substance level is at or below the critical level,the device 700 can be configured to inform a medical provider (e.g., acaregiver, a doctor, a nurse, or a pharmacy) that a refill of thesubstance is due or order a refill of the cartridge 710. Such acommunication can be performed using any of the communication devicesthat can be included in the electronic circuitry 720 (e.g., aBluetooth®, or Wi-Fi communication to a smartphone, tablet orcommunication app which is further communicated to the medical providersserver, or a direct communication to the medical providers server, forexample, via the internet). If the level of medication remaining isabove the critical threshold, the method 800 returns to operation 808and operations 808 to 814 are repeated until the level of medicationdrops below the critical level or a user turns the device 700 off. Ifthe level of medication drops below the critical level, the deviceprovides an indication to the user that the cartridge should be replacedat 816 (e.g., via an audio/visual alert, an SMS message, message to anapp on a smartphone, tablet or computer in communication with the device700).

In some embodiments, any of the medical devices described herein can beused to sense one or more physical or biochemical parameters of includedin a breath or saliva of a user and deliver one or more substance to theuser based on the physical parameter. For example, FIG. 10 is a frontview of a medical diagnostic and delivery device 900. The device 900includes a housing 902 defining an internal volume. An inlet channel 907is defined on a proximal end 903 of the housing 902. The proximal end903 is configured to be engaged by a user, for example positioned on thelips of the user such that the user can deliver a breath into the inletchannel 907 or insert saliva into the inlet channel 907. In particularembodiments, the inlet channel 907 includes a capillary so that thesaliva can be communicated via capillary action to a sensor 940 of thedevice 900. In other embodiments, a lateral flow strip can be embeddedin the inlet channel 907 configured to communicate saliva to the sensor940 via wicking action. It still other embodiments, a micro-vacuum pump(not shown) can be in fluidic communication with the inlet channel 907to draw in the saliva and deliver the saliva to the sensor 940.

The housing 902 also defines an outlet channel 904 in fluidiccommunication with a substance cartridge 910 and/or the heater 941positioned within the internal volume of the housing 902. The outletchannel 904 is configured to deliver the substance contained within thecartridge to the user, for example, a liquid substance, powderedsubstance, substance mist, substance aerosol, or substance vapor to theuser. In some embodiments, a one way valve can be positioned within theoutlet channel 907 to allow breath or saliva to only flow into thedevice 900. Similarly, a one way valve can also be positioned within theoutlet channel 904 to allow the substance to only flow out of the outletchannel 904 towards the user.

The substance cartridge 910 is positioned within the internal volume andcontains one or more substances positioned within the cartridge 910. Insome embodiments, the cartridge 910 can be a repositionable cartridgeconfigured to include a plurality of substances therewithin such as, forexample, the cartridge 410 or 510 described before herein. The substancecan include, for example, caffeine, panax, ginseng, gingko, biloba,bitter orage, cola-nut, guarana, natrum carbonicum, green tea, cocoaextract, cannabis, yerba mate, other vaporizable or inhalablesupplements, pharmaceuticals, medicines, waxes, liquids, a breathalcohol masking agent, or any other substance which can be delivered tothe user. The substance cartridge 910 is in fluidic communication withat least one of the heater 941 (e.g., to allow vapor to be producedwhich is communicated to the user via the outlet channel) and the outletchannel 904 (e.g., to allow liquid substance, powder, a mist or aerosolto directly delivered to the user).

The device 900 includes electronic circuitry 920 that includes a battery922, a processor 924, the sensor 940 and the heater 941. While notshown, the electronic circuitry 920 can include any other components,for example, the communication devices, as described with respect to theelectronic circuitry 220. In some embodiments, the electronic circuitry920 can be substantially similar to the electronic circuitry 220. Theheater 941 is configured to vaporize the substance provided by thecartridge 910 to produce vapors which are communicated to the user.Furthermore, the sensor is in fluidic communication with the inletchannel 907 and configured to receive the breath or saliva of the user.

As described before, the device 900 is configured to detect one or morephysical or biochemical parameter of the user by analyzing a breath orsaliva of the user. The user can blow into the inlet channel 907 orcommunicate saliva into the inlet channel 907 which is communicated tothe sensor 940. The sensor 940 can be substantially similar to thesensor 240 described or 740 before herein and configured to determineone or more physical parameters of the user such as, for example,glucose level, blood alcohol level (BAC), THC level (biomarker formarijuana), adrenal conditions (e.g., Cushing's disease, Addison'sdisease), hormone levels, altered female hormone states (e.g., PCOS,menopause, anovulation, pregnancy, irregular period cycles), alteredmale hormone states (e.g., hypogonadism, andropause, hyperestrogenicstates), metabolic disorders (e.g., insulin resistance, diabetes,muscular dystrophy) benign and metastatic neoplasms (e.g., breastcancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, oral cancer, lung and throatcancer, etc.), infection diseases (e.g., HIV, viral hepatitis, flu, H1N1flu, SARS virus, amoebiasis, heliobacter pylori infections, C. difficiusinfections, strep throat), food allergy, cortisol levels as indicatorsof stress, progesterone, or any other disease or medical condition for awhich a biomarker is expressed in the breath or saliva of the user.While shown as included in the electronic circuitry 920, in particularembodiments, the sensor can be included in the cartridge 910, asdescribed before with respect to the cartridge 710 included in themedical diagnostic device 700.

The processor 924 can be to receive signals from the sensor 940 anddetermine the medical condition presented by the user, for example,using instruction such as look up tables, algorithms or calibrationcurves stored on the processor 924 or on on-board memory (e.g., thememory 225 described before herein). Based on the diagnosis theprocessor 924 can be further configured to identify at least onemedication contained within the cartridge 910 which is to be deliveredto the user to address the medical diagnosis. For example, in oneinstance the diagnosis can be high glucose and the processor 924identifies that insulin contained within the cartridge 910 is to bedelivered to the user. In another instance, the processor 924 identifiesthat a blood alcohol level (BAC) of the user is high and identifies aBAC masking substance contained within the cartridge 910 is to bedelivered to the user. The cartridge 910 can include a positionablecartridge (e.g., the cartridge 410 or 510) including a plurality ofsubstances (e.g., medications) targeting a plurality of medicalconditions, for example, any of the medical conditions described herein.Based on the diagnosis performed by the processor 924 based on theparameter sensed by the sensor 940, the processor 924 can command anactuator (e.g., a linear actuator, a lead screw, a plunger or a servomotor) to reposition the cartridge 910 such that the identifiedsubstance which is to be delivered to the user is in fluidiccommunication with the outlet channel 904 or the heater 941. Inparticular embodiments, the cartridge 910 can be manuallyrepositionable. In such embodiments, the processor 924 can send acommand to a communication system (e.g., a display, an audible alarm viaa speaker, or communicate to an app on smartphone, tablet or computervia Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi, cellular network, RFID or the likes) to indicateto the user the correct position of the cartridge 910. The user can thenmanually reposition the cartridge 910 to bring the identified substancein fluidic communication with at least one of the outlet channel 904 andthe heater 941.

FIG. 11 is a schematic flow diagram of a method 1000 for sensing atleast one physical or biochemical parameter of breath or saliva of auser to diagnose a medical condition and deliver at least one medicationto the user to address the medical condition using a medical diagnosticand delivery device (e.g., the device 900 or any other medicaldiagnostic and delivery device described herein).

The method 1000 includes initializing a medical device activation at1002, for example in response to a user turning the apparatus 900 on,picking the device up, requesting a vapor draw, or inserting a new ordifferent cartridge 910. At least one of breath or saliva is received at1004. For example, the user can blow into the inlet channel 907 of themedical device 900 or spit into the inlet channel 907. At least onephysical or biochemical parameter is sensed at 1006. The breath or thesaliva is communicated through the inlet channel 907 to the sensor 940of the device 900, which senses at least one physical or chemicalparameter included in the breath or saliva, as described before herein.

In response to the sensing, at least one substance of a plurality ofsubstances included in the cartridge of the medical diagnostic anddelivery device which is to be delivered is determined at 1008. Forexample, the processor 924 interprets signals (e.g., current, voltage,optical signals) received from the sensor to determine a medicalcondition of the user, for example, a high glucose level or high BAC.Based on the diagnosis the processor 924 determines an appropriatesubstance among the plurality of substances included in the cartridge910 to be delivered to the user (e.g., insulin to lower blood glucose,BAC masking agent, Tylenol®, ibuprofen, anti-viral, anti-bacterial,anti-vomiting, anti-diarrhea, etc.). A cartridge position for substancedelivery request is determined at 1010. For example, the processor 924determines the position of a silo included in a plurality of silos ofthe cartridge 910 that includes the medication identified to bedelivered to the user.

It is determined if the cartridge position is correct at 1012. Forexample, the processor 924 determines if a silo of the cartridge 910included in a plurality of silos of the cartridge 910 that includes thesubstance that is to be delivered to the user is in a designatedposition to allow delivery to the user. If the cartridge position iscorrect, the substance is delivered to the user 1018. If the position ofthe cartridge is incorrect, a cartridge displacement to satisfy positionis determined at 1014. A cartridge repositioned is then actuated, at1016, for example, by a command from the processor 924 to a linearactuator or a servo motor to reposition the cartridge 910, as describedbefore herein. Once the cartridge 910 is repositioned, the methodsproceeds to 1018 and the substance is delivered to the user.

In some embodiments, a medical diagnostic device can be configured tomeasure a temperature of a user and simultaneously measure one or morephysical or biochemical parameters from saliva of a user. In otherwords, in some embodiments, medical diagnostic device can have a formfactor and perform the functions of a conventional thermometer whilealso monitoring various physical and/or biochemical parameters of theuser. For example, FIG. 12 is a front view of another embodiment of amedical diagnostic device 1200 for measuring a temperature and one ormore physical or biochemical parameters of a user.

The device 1200 includes a housing 1202 defining an internal volume. Atemperature sensor 1204, for example, a thermocouple, a thermistor, amercury column or an alcohol column is positioned at a proximal end 1203of the housing 1202. A user can position the proximal end of the device1200 in a buccal cavity of the user so that the temperature sensor 1204senses the temperature inside the buccal cavity of the userrepresentative of a core body temperature of the user. A fluidic channel1207 is also defined on the proximal end of the housing 1202 andconfigured to receive saliva of the user from within the buccal cavityof the user while the user measures the temperature of the user. Thefluidic channel 1207 is configured to communicate the saliva to sensor1240 include in an electronic circuitry 1220 of the device 1200. In someembodiments, the fluidic channel 1207 includes a capillary channelconfigured to draw saliva into the fluidic channel 1207 via capillaryaction. In other embodiments, a lateral flow strip can be positioned inthe fluidic channel 1207 to draw saliva and communicate saliva to thesensor 1240 via capillary action. In various embodiments, the fluidicchannel 1207 is defined around the temperature sensor 1204 as shown inFIG. 12 so at least a portion of the temperature sensor 1204 ispositioned within the fluidic channel 1207. In other embodiments, thefluidic channel 1207 can be positioned adjacent to the temperaturesensor 1204.

The electronic circuitry 1220 includes a battery 1222, a processor 1224,and a sensor 1240. While not shown, the electronic circuitry 1220 canalso include an on-board memory and various other components such as thecommunication devices described with respect to the electronic circuitry220. In some embodiments, the electronic circuitry 1220 is substantiallysimilar to the electronic circuitry 220 described herein. In someembodiments in which the temperature sensor 1204 includes a thermistoror a thermocouple, the processor 1224 can be specially preprogrammed tointerpret signals from the temperature sensor 1204 to determine atemperature of the user. The sensor 1240 is configured to receive salivavia the fluidic channel 1207 and determine one or more physical and orbiochemical parameters of the user from the saliva. Such parameters caninclude glucose level, BAC, adrenal conditions (e.g., Cushing's disease,Addison's disease), hormone levels, altered female hormone states (e.g.,PCOS, menopause, anovulation, pregnancy, irregular period cycles),altered male hormone states (e.g., hypogonadism, andropause,hyperestrogenic states), metabolic disorders (e.g., insulin resistance,diabetes, muscular dystrophy) benign and metastatic neoplasms (e.g.,breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, oral cancer, lung andthroat cancer, etc.), infection diseases (e.g., HIV, viral hepatitis,flu, H1N1 flu, SARS virus, amoebiasis, heliobacter pylori infections, C.difficius infections, strep throat), food allergy, cortisol levels asindicators of stress, progesterone, or any other disease or medicalcondition for a which a biomarker is expressed in the saliva of apatient. The sensor 1240 can be substantially similar to the sensor 240described herein with respect to the device 200 and therefore notdescribed in further detail herein.

In some embodiments, a cartridge 1210 is also included in the device1200. The cartridge 1210 can be in fluidic communication with the sensor1240. The cartridge 1210 can include one or more reagents which can becommunicated to the sensor 1240 for participating in a biochemicalreaction on the sensor involved in the sensing of a biochemicalparameter of the saliva. In other embodiments, the cartridge can includea wash fluid to clean the sensor 1240 after a sensing operation has beenperformed.

The device 1200 is configured to perform an on-demand diagnostic ofhealth of a user based on one or more physical or biochemical parametersmeasured from the saliva of the user. In other embodiments, a medicaldiagnostic device can be configured to perform long-term diagnosticsfrom the saliva of the user. For example, FIG. 13 shows a medicaldiagnostic device 1300 which includes a housing 1302 defining aninternal volume. The housing 1302 has the form factor or otherwise shapeof a dental retainer, dental brace or a mouth guard such that he device1300 can be positioned within the buccal cavity of a user and retainedwithin the buccal cavity of the user. For example, the housing 1302 caninclude a brace or clamps configured to clamp the teeth of the user andsecure the housing around the teeth. In some embodiments, grooves,depressions or indents corresponding to the bite of the user can bedefined on the housing 1302, which allow the housing 1302 to beremovably positioned over the teeth of the user. For example, the usercan position the housing 1302 of the device 1300 over a top or bottomrow of teeth and leave the device thereon (e.g., overnight) to performprolonged diagnostic on the saliva of the user.

The device 1300 includes a power source 1322, for example, a batterysuch as a coin cell. In some embodiments, the power source 1322 caninclude an electrochemical fuel cell configured to perform a redoxreaction on saliva to generate electrical power. In other embodiments,the power source 1322 can be configured to use kinetic power, forexample, provided by movement of the jaw of the user during speaking orchewing. A memory 1325 is provided that can store instructionsexecutable by a processor 1324 to perform the sensing and/orcommunication operations. The device 1300 also includes one or morecommunication devices. For example, the device 1300 can include aBluetooth® transceiver 1326, a Wi-Fi transceiver 1328, an RFID or NFCtab 1330, a cellular transceiver 1332 and/or a GPS transceiver 1334. Inparticular embodiments, the processor 1324 can be to interpret signalsfrom the Bluetooth® transceiver 1326, or any of the other transceiversdescribed herein, provided by a user. The instructions can include, forexample, firmware updates, sensor 1340 calibration parameters, device1300 on/off, or any other instructions. The instructions can be inputinto an app (e.g., a smartphone app, a tablet app, a computer app, or aprogram on remote server) which are communicated to the processor 1324and/or stored in the memory 1325 via the Bluetooth® transceiver 1326 orany of the other transceivers described herein. Similarly, the processor1324 can also be to communicate information to the user (e.g., to asmartphone app, a tablet app, a computer app, or a program on remoteserver) via the Bluetooth® transceiver. Such information can include,for example, raw sensor 1340 data, processed data corresponding to oneor more physical or biochemical parameters of the user measured fromsaliva which correspond to a health status of the user, device 1300status (e.g., power remaining), sensor health data, or any other dataproviding overall information on diagnostic results and/or health of theuser.

The sensor 1340 is configured to measure one or more physical and/orbiochemical parameters of the user. The sensor 1340 can be substantiallysimilar to the sensor 240, 740, 940, 1240 or any other sensor describedherein and is therefore, not describe in further detail. In particularembodiments, an opening 1350 can be defined proximal to the sensor 1340to allow saliva to access the sensor 1340. A porous matrix, for example,a polymer membrane, a silicone membrane, a hydrogel membrane, sol gelmembrane, a cellulose membrane, or any other porous matrix can bepositioned on the window to allow saliva to be communicated therethroughwhile preventing particulates, for example, food particles, which candamage the sensor 1340 or skew sensor 1340 measurements to passtherethrough.

In some embodiments, a medical diagnostic device can include aningestible pill. For example, FIG. 14 is a schematic illustration of amedical diagnostic device 1400 configured to be ingested by a user tomeasure one or more physical or biochemical parameters of the user. Suchparameters can include, for example, glucose level, blood alcohol level(BAC), THC level (biomarker for marijuana), biomarkers for adrenalconditions (e.g., Cushing's disease, Addison's disease), hormone levels,altered female hormone states (e.g., PCOS, menopause, anovulation,pregnancy, irregular period cycles), altered male hormone states (e.g.,hypogonadism, andropause, hyperestrogenic states), metabolic disorders(e.g., insulin resistance, diabetes, muscular dystrophy) benign andmetastatic neoplasms (e.g., breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostatecancer, oral cancer, lung and throat cancer, etc.), infection diseases(e.g., HIV, viral hepatitis, flu, H1N1 flu, SARS virus, amoebiasis,heliobacter pylori infections, C. difficius infections, strep throat),food allergy, cortisol levels as indicators of stress, progesterone, orany other disease or medical condition for a which a biomarker isexpressed in blood or digestive fluids.

The device 1400 includes a housing 1402 defining an internal volume. Insome embodiments, the housing is non-biodegradable, i.e. does notdissolve or decompose within the digestive tract of the user. In suchembodiments, an channel 1404 is defined in a sidewall of the housing1402 to allow saliva or digestive fluids to enter the internal volumeand access a sensor 1440 included in electronic circuitry 1420 of thedevice 1400. In other embodiments, the housing 1402 can be biodegradablewhich dissolves a predetermined time after ingestion to allow thedigestive fluids to access the sensor 1440, as described in furtherdetail herein. In such embodiments, the channel 1404 can be excluded.

The device includes the electronic circuitry 1420 which includes a powersource 1422, a processor 1424, a memory 1425, a Bluetooth® transceiver1426 and the sensor 1440 configured to perform any of the functionsdescribed before herein. In various embodiments in which the housing1402 is biodegradable, the electronic circuitry 1420 and each of thecomponents included therein can also be biodegradable, for example,formed from food grade and/or organic materials which are bio-degradableor bio-consumable. For example, the battery 1422 can be a biobatteryconfigured to be powered by the digestive fluids of the user. In someembodiments, each of the components included in the electronic circuitry1420 are configured to decompose a predetermined time after ingestion,the predetermined time allowing sufficient delay to perform meaningfulsensing measurements via the sensor 1440 and communicate the measureddata via the Bluetooth® transceiver to a remote server before theelectronic circuitry 1420 and the components included therein degrades.In other embodiments in which the housing 1402 is non-biodegradable, theelectronic circuitry 1420 can included conventional electroniccomponents.

In some embodiments, the device 1400 is configured to measure one ormore physical or biochemical parameters, for example, BAC, from a salivaor digestive fluid of a user. In other embodiments, it might benecessary to obtain blood to perform reliable measurements. In suchembodiments, an ingestible medical diagnostic device can include aneedle to draw blood from within a digestive tract of the user. Forexample, FIG. 15 is a schematic illustration of another ingestiblemedical diagnostic device 1500. The device includes a housing 1502defining an internal volume within which electronic circuitry 1402 thatincludes the sensor 1440 and is described with respect to the device1400, is positioned. The housing 1502 is formed from a non-biodegradablematerial.

The device 1500 includes a needle 1504 defining a lumen 1505. The device1500 also includes an actuator 1550 including a plunger 1552 configuredto displace a tip of the needle proximal or distal relative to thehousing 1502. The actuator 1550 can include a linear actuator, a gaspump actuator, or a spring loaded actuator. In some embodiments, abiasing member (not shown) can also be coupled to the needle to retractthe needle 1504 into the housing 1502 once a blood sample is collected.For example, in an initial configuration, the needle 1504 can bepositioned substantially within the housing 1502 such that the tip ofthe needle 1504 is within the housing 1502. At a predetermined timeafter ingestion of the device 1500 or after receiving a remote commandfrom a user (e.g. via the Bluetooth® transceiver 1432 not shown in FIG.15 for clarity), the actuator 1550 actuates the plunger 1552 to urge thetip of the needle 1504 distal from the housing 1502. The needle 1504 canpierce a sidewall of the housing 1504 or displace through an openingdefined in a sidewall of the housing 1502 so that the tip of the needle1504 emerges through the sidewall of the housing 1502 and pierces anendothelial lining of the digestive tract (e.g., duodenum, stomach,large intestine, small intestine, etc.) and draw a blood sample, forexample, through capillary action. The blood is communicated via thelumen 1505 of the needle 1504 to the sensor 1440 for sensing. Once asufficient amount of blood is withdrawn, the actuator 1550 can urge theplunger to withdraw the needle 1504 into the housing 1502 so that thetip is disposed substantially within the housing 1502. In otherembodiments, a biasing member coupled to the needle 1504 can urge theneedle 1504 into the housing 1502 once a sufficient amount of blood hasbeen withdrawn.

FIG. 16 is a schematic flow diagram of an exemplary method fordiagnosing one or more physical or biochemical parameters of a userusing a medical diagnostic pill, for example, the medical diagnosticdevice 1500. The method includes initializing medical diagnostic pillactivation at 1602, for example, activating the device 1500 beforeingestion, placing the device 1500 in a buccal cavity, or remotelycommanding the device 1500 to initialize. The medical diagnostic pill isorally ingested at 1604, for example, a user swallows the device 1500. Aneedle of the pill is actuated in response to one of elapse of apredetermined time or a remote actuation signal at 1606. For example,the processor 1424 of the electronic circuitry 1420 can be to includeinstructions for actuating the needle 1504 after a predetermined timehas elapsed after swallowing to insert the tip of the needle into anendothelial layer of the digestive tract. In other embodiments, a remoteactuation signal can be communicated via Bluetooth® or any othercommunication device using a smartphone app, a tablet app, or a programon a computer to actuate the needle.

Bodily fluid is drawn into a lumen of the needle and delivered to asensor of the pill at 1608. For example, blood or interstitial fluid isdrawn into the lumen 1505 of the needle 1504 when the tip of the needle1504 is inserted into an endothelial layer of the digestive tract. Theblood is communicated via the lumen 1505 to the sensor 1540. At leastone biochemical parameter is sensed using the sensor at 1610, forexample, the sensor 1440. The sensor data corresponding to the sensingof the parameter is communicated to a user 1612, for example, via theBluetooth® transceiver 1432 included in the electronic circuitry 1420.In some embodiments, the needle is withdrawn in the housing of the pillafter a sufficient quantity of blood has been drawn and communicated tothe sensor 1540.

In certain embodiments, the electronic circuitry included in each of themedical diagnostic devices 200, 700, 900, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 or anyother device described herein can include a diagnostic control system.The diagnostic control system may include a controller structured toperform certain operations to cause sensing or delivery of a substance.The controller may be a single device or a distributed device, and thefunctions of the controller may be performed by hardware and/or ascomputer instructions on a non-transient computer readable storagemedium.

In certain embodiments, the controller includes one or more modulesstructured to functionally execute the operations of the controller. Incertain embodiments, the controller includes sensor modules configuredto measure time lapse, energy consumption, product consumption, rotationposition, a change in rotation, linear position, a change in a linearposition, product location, product ingredients, or other diagnostic,delivery or vaporization system operating parameters or conditionsimpacting the use, sensing, dispensing, or operation of the medicaldiagnostic system.

The description herein including modules emphasizes the structuralindependence of the aspects of the controller, and illustrates onegrouping of operations and responsibilities of the controller. Othergroupings that execute similar overall operations are understood withinthe scope of the present application. Modules may be implemented inhardware and/or as computer instructions on a non-transient computerreadable storage medium, and modules may be distributed across varioushardware or computer based components.

Example and non-limiting module implementation elements include sensorsproviding any value determined herein, sensors providing any value thatis a precursor to a value determined herein, datalink and/or networkhardware including communication chips, oscillating crystals,communication links, cables, twisted pair wiring, coaxial wiring,shielded wiring, transmitters, receivers, and/or transceivers, logiccircuits, hard-wired logic circuits, reconfigurable logic circuits in aparticular non-transient state configured according to the modulespecification, any actuator including at least an electrical, hydraulic,or pneumatic actuator, a solenoid, an op-amp, analog control elements(springs, filters, integrators, adders, dividers, gain elements), and/ordigital control elements.

Non-limiting examples of various embodiments are disclosed herein.Features from one embodiments disclosed herein may be combined withfeatures of another embodiment disclosed herein as someone of ordinaryskill in the art would understand.

As utilized herein, the terms “approximately,” “about,” “substantially”and similar terms are intended to have a broad meaning in harmony withthe common and accepted usage by those of ordinary skill in the art towhich the subject matter of this disclosure pertains. It should beunderstood by those of skill in the art who review this disclosure thatthese terms are intended to allow a description of certain featuresdescribed without restricting the scope of these features to the precisenumerical ranges provided. Accordingly, these terms should beinterpreted as indicating that insubstantial or inconsequentialmodifications or alterations of the subject matter described and areconsidered to be within the scope of the disclosure.

For the purpose of this disclosure, the term “coupled” means the joiningof two members directly or indirectly to one another. Such joining maybe stationary or moveable in nature. Such joining may be achieved withthe two members or the two members and any additional intermediatemembers being integrally formed as a single unitary body with oneanother or with the two members or the two members and any additionalintermediate members being attached to one another. Such joining may bepermanent in nature or may be removable or releasable in nature.

It should be noted that the orientation of various elements may differaccording to other exemplary embodiments, and that such variations areintended to be encompassed by the present disclosure. It is recognizedthat features of the disclosed embodiments can be incorporated intoother disclosed embodiments.

It is important to note that the constructions and arrangements ofapparatuses or the components thereof as shown in the various exemplaryembodiments are illustrative only. Although only a few embodiments havebeen described in detail in this disclosure, those skilled in the artwho review this disclosure will readily appreciate that manymodifications are possible (e.g., variations in sizes, dimensions,structures, shapes and proportions of the various elements, values ofparameters, mounting arrangements, use of materials, colors,orientations, etc.) without materially departing from the novelteachings and advantages of the subject matter disclosed. For example,elements shown as integrally formed may be constructed of multiple partsor elements, the position of elements may be reversed or otherwisevaried, and the nature or number of discrete elements or positions maybe altered or varied. The order or sequence of any process or methodsteps may be varied or re-sequenced according to alternativeembodiments. Other substitutions, modifications, changes and omissionsmay also be made in the design, operating conditions and arrangement ofthe various exemplary embodiments without departing from the scope ofthe present disclosure.

While various inventive embodiments have been described and illustratedherein, those of ordinary skill in the art will readily envision avariety of other mechanisms and/or structures for performing thefunction and/or obtaining the results and/or one or more of theadvantages described herein, and each of such variations and/ormodifications is deemed to be within the scope of the inventiveembodiments described herein. More generally, those skilled in the artwill readily appreciate that, unless otherwise noted, any parameters,dimensions, materials, and configurations described herein are meant tobe exemplary and that the actual parameters, dimensions, materials,and/or configurations will depend upon the specific application orapplications for which the inventive teachings is/are used. Thoseskilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain using no morethan routine experimentation, many equivalents to the specific inventiveembodiments described herein. It is, therefore, to be understood thatthe foregoing embodiments are presented by way of example only and that,within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereto,inventive embodiments may be practiced otherwise than as specificallydescribed and claimed. Inventive embodiments of the present disclosureare directed to each individual feature, system, article, material, kit,and/or method described herein. In addition, any combination of two ormore such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods,if such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods arenot mutually inconsistent, is included within the inventive scope of thepresent disclosure.

Also, the technology described herein may be embodied as a method, ofwhich at least one example has been provided. The acts performed as partof the method may be ordered in any suitable way unless otherwisespecifically noted. Accordingly, embodiments may be constructed in whichacts are performed in an order different than illustrated, which mayinclude performing some acts simultaneously, even though shown assequential acts in illustrative embodiments.

The indefinite articles “a” and “an,” as used herein in thespecification and in the claims, unless clearly indicated to thecontrary, should be understood to mean “at least one.” As used herein inthe specification and in the claims, “or” should be understood to havethe same meaning as “and/or” as defined above. For example, whenseparating items in a list, “or” or “and/or” shall be interpreted asbeing inclusive, i.e., the inclusion of at least one, but also includingmore than one, of a number or list of elements, and, optionally,additional unlisted items. Only terms clearly indicated to the contrary,such as “only one of” or “exactly one of” will refer to the inclusion ofexactly one element of a number or list of elements. In general, theterm “or” as used herein shall only be interpreted as indicatingexclusive alternatives (i.e. “one or the other but not both”) whenpreceded by terms of exclusivity, such as “either,” “one of,” “only oneof,” or “exactly one of.”

As used herein in the specification and in the claims, the phrase “atleast one,” in reference to a list of one or more elements, should beunderstood to mean at least one element selected from any one or more ofthe elements in the list of elements, but not necessarily including atleast one of each and every element specifically listed within the listof elements and not excluding any combinations of elements in the listof elements. This definition also allows that elements may optionally bepresent other than the elements specifically identified within the listof elements to which the phrase “at least one” refers, whether relatedor unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as anon-limiting example, “at least one of A and B” (or, equivalently, “atleast one of A or B,” or, equivalently “at least one of A and/or B”) canrefer, in one embodiment, to at least one, optionally including morethan one, A, with no B present (and optionally including elements otherthan B); in another embodiment, to at least one, optionally includingmore than one, B, with no A present (and optionally including elementsother than A); in yet another embodiment, to at least one, optionallyincluding more than one, A, and at least one, optionally including morethan one, B (and optionally including other elements); etc.

In the claims, as well as in the specification above, all transitionalphrases such as “comprising,” “including,” “carrying,” “having,”“containing,” “involving,” “holding,” “composed of,” and the like are tobe understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limitedto.

The claims should not be read as limited to the described order orelements unless stated to that effect. It should be understood thatvarious changes in form and detail may be made by one of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the appendedclaims. All embodiments that come within the spirit and scope of thefollowing claims and equivalents thereto are claimed.

What is claimed is:
 1. A medical diagnostic and delivery devicecomprising: a cartridge including one more substance or medicamentsconfigured to be delivered to a user; a heating element to vaporize thesubstance and deliver the vapor to a user; and one or more sensorsconfigured to analyze the one or substances or medications includedwithin the cartridge and determine an expiration date of the substanceor medication.